Friday, December 5, 2008

So yeah, Jer’s right, we’ve been slacking and I, for one, apologize. I’ve had a bunch of thoughts on college football from the past week, so since I didn’t get them spread out into a couple of posts, let’s just get them all in right here…

…A lot of Big 10 news this week like…oh that’s right the Big 10 continues to insist on wrapping up their regular season before Thanksgiving, so therefore there is really NOTHING Big 10 related to talk about. Awesome. I DO NOT want a conference title game (but allow me to say again they should drop at least one non-conference game so we only miss one team a year instead of two), but they need to play Thanksgiving weekend. There’s so much hype and chatter this time of year and yet there’s nothing Big 10-related to talk about. Boo-urns.

…Ok fine, I’ll weigh in on Charlie Weis and Notre Dame. But just this once. Should Weis have been fired this year? I like to see a new coach get 4-5 years to have his recruits and system fully in place. The Irish fired Ty Willingham too soon (although, with the way things went at Washington, looks like it would have happened eventually anyway), just as his kids were becoming juniors and seniors, the very group Weis has had his only success with. Weis needs one more year to prove himself with an entire group of kids he recruited, so I don’t have a problem with him getting one more year. What I do have a problem with is all of these Notre Dame people complaining. You want to complain about something? Complain about the group of people who run your school that decided to give Weis a 10 YEAR EXTENSION (10 YEARS! 10 FREAKING YEARS!!!!!) barely a year into his first season. That was stupid. Stoo-ped. You want to fire someone? Fire those people, or at put someone else in charge of executive football decisions. Because that, friends, is ridiculous.

…Ok one more Notre Dame thought- anyone else saddened to see Jimmy Clausen failing so far at ND? (Allow me a minute to laugh heartily at that thought) The kid who in high school rolled up to make the announcement he was attending Notre Dame in a stretch Hummer limo, and acted like the greatest player in the history of the universe (probably because everybody was telling him that). Two lessons to be learned here: 1) Clausen boys are average-at-best and generally disappointing college quarterbacks (older brothers Casey and Rick had less than stellar careers at Tennessee) and 2) nobody overhypes their recruits, and especially their QB recruits (remember Ron Paulus, who was SO GOOD coming out of high school Irish fans said he would win FOUR Heismans? How’d that work out?), more than Notre Dame. Nobody. So they’ve got that going for them, which is nice.

…Hopefully this weekend’s slate of games are more exciting than last weekend’s. Last weekend we saw some old-school pre-BCS/parity-style beatdowns. The best game I saw (or at least parts of) was Georgia Tech’s win over Georgia. If you haven’t heard or seen it, new Tech coach Paul Johnson came from Navy and brought his old-school Nebraska triple-option run offense to the ACC. People laughed at the hire, saying BCS conference schools now have defenses that are way too fast for a traditional running option offense to work anymore. Well now that Tech are 8-4 are probably headed for a New Year’s Day bowl, nobody’s laughing, especially not Georgia. While it’s definitely true that defenses today ARE faster and stronger than ever, that doesn’t mean they’re better, for two reasons: defenses today are more undisciplined than ever, and they CANNOT TACKLE!!! Holy Christmas, watching that Tech/Georgia game, I was amazed/appalled at how many missed tackles the Bulldogs had (and that defense is loaded-LOADED-with NFL talent). The atrocious level of tackling in college football has become an epidemic, and because of that, Johnson’s old school triple option run-heavy offense works better than ever. Don’t be surprised to see more teams in coming seasons bringing that offense back.

…Can’t believe the stink some people are making because USC wants to wear their home uni’s this weekend in a road game against rival UCLA. Back in the day (in that crazy, long-ago decade called the 1980’s), the Bruins and Trojans both wore their home unis when they played, and from what I’ve seen, it looked pretty awesome to see the UCLA blue against the USC red and gold. Since that time the NCAA has instituted a rule saying the road team HAS to wear white, otherwise they forfeit one timeout each half. SC coach Pete Carroll has said he and UCLA coach Rick Neuheisel have agreed to allow the Trojans to wear their home reds in the Rose Bowl this weekend, and that Carroll has no problem giving up the timeouts (and with UCLA at 4-7 this season, why wouldn’t he?). The problem seems to be not just in Neuheisel agreeing to this, but also saying HE would give up a first half timeout as a gesture of goodwill. Bruins fans and others are outraged because they think UCLA is being pushed around by SC, and that they need to stand up to them and not be “disrespected.” Really? So it’s not ok to try to bring back a cool tradition? It’s not ok to build the rivalry by doing something that people from coast to coast will talk about? I just don’t get the outrage. If Neuheisel wants to give up a timeout to make it happen, I say good for him.

…The Big 12 just can’t decide anything. The latest example is Texas QB Colt McCoy being named the Associated Press Big 12 Player of the Year…and then the same group of people voted him 2nd team all-conference behind Oklahoma QB Sam Bradford. Only in the Big 12.

…Speaking of Bradford and the Sooners, how many points do they hang on Missouri? 50? 60? 65? I’d like Missouri’s chances if they had a defense, but since they don’t, I don’t see how they stay within a couple of TD’s of the ridiculous Oklahoma offense.

…Finally, I’m VERY excited for the SEC championship game. Florida has been the best team in the land since their shocking loss to Ole Miss (although with the Rebels finishing 8-4, that loss doesn’t look so bad now), yet Alabama continues to answer every challenge, and might be the most physical team in the country. I think Florida wins a close one, but it should be a great game. As for the Big 10 games this weekend- oh right, forgot, they’ve been done for two weeks. Well nonetheless, enjoy the games this weekend everybody, and as Seth Cohen would say “Happy Christmakah.”